15 of the World’s Most Expensive Foods

If you ever find yourself in a Brewster’s Millions situation and have to burn through a fortune in a hurry, then all you need are this article, a few plane tickets and an empty stomach. (It never hurts to plan for the unexpected.) So just in case, here are 15 meals that can help you wipe out your bank account in no time.

1, 2 & 3. The Most Expensive Burgers

Where You Can Find It: Serendipity 3, New York

Price: $295

What Makes It So Expensive: Le Burger Extravagant is made with white truffle butter-infused Japanese Wagyu beef, topped with James Montgomery cheddar cheese, black truffles and a fried quail egg. It’s served on a gold-dusted roll spread with white truffle butter and topped with a blini, crème fraiche and caviar. If that weren’t enough to excuse the price, it also comes with a solid-gold, diamond-encrusted toothpick.

There’s Competition Though: While they may not be recognized by Guinness, New York food truck 666 Burger offers the $666 Douche Burger that features a Kobe beef patty stuffed with foie gras and gold-leaf, covered in caviar, lobster, truffles, Gruyere cheese melted with champagne steam and BBQ sauce made with Kopi Luwak coffee. While the burger was a satire of La Burger Extravagant, it is actually available for sale, but as of yet, only one person has actually ordered it.

There’s also the FleurBurger 5000, from Vegas restaurant Fleur that features a Wagyu beef and foie gras patty with truffle sauce and shaved black truffles. Your order for this $5,000 burger also includes a bottle of $2,500 wine, Chateau Petrus, so really, you’re not just paying for the burger -- but still, the $2,500 burger might be the world’s most expensive, even if it’s not official yet.

4. The Most Expensive Dessert

Where You Can Find It: Serendipity 3 (Yes, the same place as the most expensive burger)

Price: $25,000

What Makes It So Expensive:The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate ice cream sundae contains a blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the most expensive in the world. It is decorated with edible gold and served in a goblet lined with edible gold. As if all that weren’t enough, there is an 18 karat gold bracelet with 1 carat of diamonds in the bottom of the sundae, and the treat is served with a golden spoon decorated in white and chocolate diamonds, both of which go home with the diner.

6. The Most Expensive Pie

Where You Can Find It: The Fence Gate Inn, Lancashire

Price: $14,260, or $1,781 per slice

What Makes It So Expensive:This meat pie contains $870 worth of Wagyu beef fillet, Chinese matsutake mushrooms (that cost around $400 a pound), winter black truffles, and French bluefoot mushrooms (they go for around $160 a pound). Two bottles of vintage 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine are used in the gravy (another $1,740 per bottle) and the crust is covered in edible gold leaf.

8. The Most Expensive Bagel

Where You Can Find It: Westin Hotel, New York

Price: $1,000

What Makes It So Expensive: Executive Chef Frank Tujague topped the most expensive bagel with white truffle cream cheese and goji berry-infused Riesling jelly and gold leaf. At least a portion of the proceeds are donated to the Les Amis d’Escoffier Scholarship, which benefits current and future culinary students.

9. The Most Expensive Pizza

What Makes It So Expensive: Up to 100 grams of white truffles and gold leaf. Orders must be placed one week in advance and, on the bright side, the chain gives all the money from this particular pie away to charity.

12. The Most Expensive Ramen

Where You Can Find It: Fujimaki Gekijyo, Tokyo

Price: $110 per bowl

What Makes It So Expensive: This isn’t the ramen you snacked on during your college days. Owner/chef Shoichi Fujimaki opens the doors to his menu-less, reservation-only restaurant to those who have already dined at one of his other restaurants. Once you get access to the restaurant, you will be served the Five-Taste Blend Imperial Noodles made with over twenty ingredients and two different soup stocks.

13. The Most Expensive Soup

Where You Can Find It: Kai Mayfair, London

Price: $190 per bowl

What Makes It So Expensive: The Buddha Jumps Over the Wall contains shark’s fin, abalone, Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, huan ham, pork and ginseng. Orders must be placed five days in advance so the chef can source all the ingredients.

14. The Most Expensive Sushi

Where You Can Find It: Request it From Filipino Chef Angelito Araneta Jr.

Price: $1,978.15 for five pieces

What Makes It So Expensive: Well, each piece of sushi is wrapped in gold leaf and topped with caviar, three Mikimoto pearls and served with a diamond. No word on what fish was actually used on the inside of the sushi rolls, but I’m kind of hoping it’s imitation crab.

15. The Most Expensive Ham

Where You Can Find It: The Food Hall in Sefridges, London

Price: $2,682 for a 15 pound ham (about $180 a pound)

What Makes It So Expensive: The Albarragena Jamon Iberico de Bellota is made from pigs that were only fed acorns and roots to give them a distinctive flavor. The ham is then cured for three years before being put in a handmade wooden box with an apron handmade by a Spanish tailor. And just so you know what you’re getting, each ham comes with its own DNA certificate confirming its authenticity.

10 Surprising Uses for Leftover Bananas

Bananas are practically the perfect fruit. They’re high in potassium and vitamins. They don’t need to be washed or sliced. They make a great healthy snack, but you can also put them in bread, ice cream, pie, and pancakes. What’s not to love?

Well, there’s one tiny problem—they go bad quickly. Bananas produce a large amount of a gas called ethylene, which causes fruit to ripen faster, meaning that there's a small window to enjoy them. Just because a bunch of bananas is past its prime doesn’t mean they can’t be used, though. Here are a few of the things you can do with ripe bananas.

1. TREAT BUG BITES.

Pressing the inside of a banana peel onto a bite from a mosquito or other insect for a few minutes is a surprisingly simple way to quell itching. In fact, some studies have shown that banana peels can help reduce irritation and inflammation [PDF, PDF]. The use of banana peels to treat inflammation is said to be an ancient Chinese remedy, but people around the world swear (with varying degrees of evidence) by the fruit’s ability to soothe poison ivy rashes, psoriasis, sunburn, and other skin maladies.

2. REMOVE A SPLINTER.

If tweezers aren’t getting that pesky splinter out, try a banana peel instead. Tape a piece of the peel onto the affected area (with the soft, inner side of the peel facing down) and leave it in place for about 10 minutes. The enzymes in the fruit should help to force the splinter out.

3. ATTRACT BUTTERFLIES AND HUMMINGBIRDS.

Once a common sight in the U.S., monarch butterflies are now difficult to spot. Their population has dwindled due to loss of habitat, but you can improve your chances of seeing them by placing an overripe banana out in your garden. They’re just soft and sweet enough for butterflies to enjoy (make sure to remove the bananas before you go to bed, though, or else you'll have animals like raccoons in your garden). You can also place bananas near a hummingbird feeder to attract fruit flies, which the birds feast on.

4. FERTILIZE PLANTS.

While you’re out in the garden feeding the birds and butterflies, give your plants some love, too. When cut-up banana peels are buried, they enrich the soil with nutrients and help nourish plants. You can also wrap a banana peel around a tomato plant to create a natural fertilizer.

5. POLISH LEATHER AND SILVER.

If you’re in need of a quick shoe shine, reach for the fruit bowl. The potassium in bananas make them a great, quick tool for polishing your leather. Simply buff the leather with the inside of a banana peel, and use a cloth to wipe it clean. The same technique can also be used to polish silver (though some recommend blending the banana peels into a paste and putting that on a cloth for polishing).

6. MAKE SMOOTHIES, SANS ICE.

Bananas have long been a staple in smoothies, but what if you have a whole bunch that’s about to go bad? Instead of throwing them out, stick them in the freezer. You can pull one out any time you get a smoothie craving, and since it’s frozen, you won’t even need to add ice.

7. MAKE NATURAL BEAUTY PRODUCTS.

Beauty products don’t have to be expensive. Bananas are a great ingredient in DIY hair treatments and skin exfoliants. The amino and citric acids help protect hair from damage and keep it shiny. There are a few different recipes you can try, some of which combine banana with avocado, yogurt, egg, and other ingredients. Rubbing the inside of a banana peel onto your face (seriously, try it) is also said to brighten your skin, fight acne, and reduce puffiness around your eyes.

8. PREVENT INFLAMED MUSCLES.

A recent study published in the journal PLOS One found that competitive cyclists who had consumed a banana instead of a sugary drink or water had less inflammation following their workout. Although other physicians cite the benefits of consuming bananas post-workout, the sample for this particular study was small—only 20 cyclists—and was funded by Dole Foods (although they had no role in any part of the study), so you might not want to swap out ibuprofen for bananas just yet—especially since the lead author toldThe New York Times that the banana led to “quite a bit of bloating,” so maybe best to not experiment on race day.

9. REPAIR A SCRATCHED DVD.

CDs and DVDs may be a dying technology, but many people still have a few lying around at home. If you have any discs that are scratched, you can try using toothpaste and banana to salvage them. First, rub toothpaste into the scratches with a cloth. Wipe it off, then rub a piece of banana onto the disc in a circular motion. Do the same thing with the banana peel and clean the disc with window cleaner. Whether or not this trick works will depend on how badly the disc is scratched, but it’s worth a shot!

10. TRY OUT SOME NEW RECIPES.

If a bunch of bananas is too ripe for your liking, try repurposing the fruit. There are hundreds of recipes that call for overripe bananas. The Food Network's Canadian site lists 83 recipes on its website, including chocolate chip banana pancakes, a peanut butter and banana oatmeal smoothie, and slow cooker banana upside down cake.

Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone Uses a $5 Tool to Clean His Grill

Every grill master knows that cleaning the grates of a barbecue is an essential step in the cooking process. If you forget to scrub off that caked-on char from your last cookout, any food you slap onto the grill will stick and fall apart when you try to flip it. Plus, all that dirt and grime will be an unwelcome addition to your meal. An easy way to avoid this is to give your grill a proper cleaning before you fire it up. And if you don't have a grill brush in your arsenal, a $5 tool you may already have at home will do just fine.

According to Eater, a regular paint scraper is the preferred grill-cleaning gadget of Curtis Stone. The Australian chef and TV personality is the owner of the restaurant Gwen in Los Angeles, which specializes in prime cuts of meat cooked over an open flame. He could use a professional grill brush if he ever chose to, but he tells Eater that a paint scraper is what he wields at home and in his restaurant.

Most commercial grill brushes come with wire bristles, but according to Stone, the scraping part attached to the top is the only feature that's useful. Not only is a paint scraper simpler, it's also compact enough to fit in a back pocket—a major plus for grillers who are prone to misplacing their cooking implements.

A basic grill brush can cost between $10 and $20, with the fancier versions selling for over $100. A metal paint scraper can be purchased from Amazon for $5.